Associate Head Coach of the Golden State Warriors, Mike Brown has revealed why he accepted to coach the Nigeria National Men's Basketball Team, D'Tigers, stating that he'll lead the team to a podium finish at the rescheduled Tokyo Olympics.

D'Tigers qualification to the Olympics moved the Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF) to appoint Mike Brown to lead the team with Jordan Nwora relegated to an assistant role.

Brown in an interview with International Olympics Channels disclosed that talent level in Nigeria is enormous, adding that the president of the NBBF Musa Kida played a vital role.

"The talent level is enormous coming from Nigeria and on top of that, Musa Kida who's the president of the Nigeria Basketball Federation is a guy I have a lot of respect for," Brown began. "He reached out to me and the vision that he presented to me in my opinion was second to none especially with where they are right now in the world rankings and where they want to be going forward. So, listening to his vision, speaking about the program in general got me excited and made me wanted to be a part of the process."

Nigeria qualified for the Tokyo Olympics after beating China in the classification round while also becoming the best-placed African team in the 2019 World Cup.

The 2009 NBA Coach of the Year was positive of a podium finish for Nigeria at the Olympics, slated for July this year.

"Trust me I know I've been fortunate, however you want to call it to be in the situation that I've been in. I am doing things to put us in the situation to try and get that podium finish come Olympic time which is very exciting for myself and everybody else involved. But, you also want to try to impact the US and beyond and being African American there's no better connection for me than a country in Africa and especially Nigeria," He added.

The D'Tigers have been drawn in Group B with Australia, Winner of Olympics Qualifying Tournament in Croatia (where host Croatia will battle against Tunisia and Brazil, Germany, Russia and Mexico for the sole ticket) and winner of Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Serbia (comprising of Dominican Republic, New Zealand, host-Serbia, Puerto Rico, Italy and Senegal).

He added that the Basketball Federation in Nigeria have given him the free-hands on scheduling to which he said plans are on grounds to alleviate the effect of COVID-19 pandemic as D'Tigers prepare for the Olympics in Tokyo.

"So one of the things that the federation has allowed me to do is to take control of our scheduling. We have a tentative game scheduled with Team Australia here in the (San Francisco) Bay (Area). We're going to go to Las Vegas to be with some of the other teams.

I also have a fallback schedule just in case the pandemic is still raging. And all that is, is a training camp is going to be shorter. We're not going to travel as much. We're not travelling as much as it is.

But what our guys will understand is if a pandemic is still raging or pretty bad, I'm going to have to cut down the number of invites and I'm going to have to keep the group that gets invited," said Brown. 

The 50-year-old Brown is in his fifth season as associate head coach for the Warriors during which the franchise has won two NBA championships and advanced to the NBA Finals three times within this period.

Brown is currently on a primary Assignment with the Warriors and won't be available to lead the D'Tigers to the Afrobasket qualifiers this February but will return to the team before the Olympics.